ViDi Is Going To Space

ViDi loves to see these kinds of projects, that take something so ambitious and empower people to actually do them.

What’s the coolest thing you did as a kid?

I reached peak childhood success when I entered into the Invention Convention in third grade, created a tool to cut the crust off bread, dubbed it the “crust cutter”, and took home first place for my innovative and crust-removing ways. In retrospect, it must have been an incredible down year at the Invention Convention, but at the time I was pretty fired up and envisioned a life for myself as a world-renowned inventor transforming the world and also bread.

News flash: I’m not a world-renowned inventor and nowadays I eat the crust on my bread, thus rendering my finest invention irrelevant. I’m also slightly angry at today’s kids because they get to experience way cooler things than I did, like blasting things into space whenever they feel like it and recording the entire adventure on cool action cameras.

This is especially relevant to the students of the Tooele School District’s Community Learning Center, who are partnering together with ViDi to send a load of goodies into space, including multiple ViDi action cameras that will catalog the journey. Other goodies include a Dark Energy battery pack, a Raspberry Pi computer to track all scientific measures, and Larry the stuffed lemur — we’re praying Larry doesn’t get too lonely on the expedition.

“ViDi loves to see these kinds of projects, that take something so ambitious and empower people to actually do them. That’s the kind of confidence that I hope to spark within my own kids,” said Spencer Taylor, CEO of ViDi.

The launch was initially scheduled for May 23 at the Tooele airport but time, fate, and weather (mainly weather) have pushed it to June 4 and changed the location to Wendover, Nevada — I’ve always believed that nothing goes together better than gambling and space voyage, apparently I’m not alone.

ViDi continues to gain steam after placing first at the StartSLC pitch competition in January 2015, following that up with a Kickstarter campaign that raised $151,000. Their $99 action cameras are now available on Amazon so if you’re looking to affordably record your next space launch (or whatever), you know where to find them.

Published 5/25/2016